How will you be stopped from going outside the bounds? As far as I know there is no support for this in the current engine?

There are a number of mods that are designed specifically for this purpose. Depending on what is set up, you may simply have your movement prevented with a message appearing on the screen to tell you why. We don't need to have a physical barrier though I believe some mods do offer something physical (like a line on the sky or ground) as an option. If you are tunnelling.... then you shouldn't tunnel so close to the border

Well it is worth noting that when people claim an area, they are making claim from bedrock to sky limit, so while they may only build above land, their claim extends below it.

It is unfortunate that explorations will be lost - however we have had discussions on map size/server strain before, and there needs to be a balance between the needs of the many, vs the needs of a few who would like to expand the map for largely their own gain. If exploring is what interests you, there is always the option to set yourself your own multiplayer server on your own machine

Im fine with this... exploring is cool and finding nice formations etc but its not the end of the world

Thanks DM. Your warps were the ones that I was most concerned about as I wasn't 100% sure when they first appeared and thus if there had been massive work beneath them, out of sight of our eye in the sky.

__________________Cheers......Thermal IonsAlthough the scythe isn't pre-eminent among the weapons of war, anyone who has been on the wrong end of, say, a peasants' revolt will know that in skilled hands it is fearsome. -- (Terry Pratchett, Mort)

actually I think the problem is the map rendering does have to do something in the empty voids.... isn't it? which is why the strain gets worse even if people only make a thin branch off the main map, where you'd think it won't add much extra. Since the actual land area of the new explorations aren't all that big - but they expand the whole area the map takes up.

I don't know MMOG... but I've noticed warping is incredibly laggy now (for the last week or so), compared to normal.... I don't know why, since you'd think if it's only loading a segment around you, it shouldn't matter how big the whole map is... but it seems maybe it does.